Describing and communicating diagnostic workflows for medical imaging, systems, such as diagnostic medical ultrasound systems, magnetic resonance imaging systems, etc., is often messy and time-consuming. Often methods are ad hoc or too far abstracted from the actual exam or workflow application to provide clear rigorous communications for all parties needing to understand the workflow description. Entities that have differing perspectives, such as caused by a language barrier, are unable to take advantage of a common core of meaning inherent in the workflow, leading to challenges in the creation and conveyance of the workflow instruction set. These entities may include doctors, clinicians and sonographers, administrative staff, application and equipment designers, engineers, test and service personnel, as well as, the diagnostic, acquisition, review systems and hospital enterprise systems with which they interact.
Using ad hoc workflow descriptions to perform exams can lead to inefficiency and safety concerns in performing workflow steps in the clinical environment and in the implementation of workflow related features, often requiring many supplementary details to determine the meaning of the workflow descriptions. In addition, the depiction and level of detail in one workflow description may be suitable for one user and not another. Further, even the same user, after some amount of experience with the system, may require a different depiction of the same workflow to carry out instructions efficiently.
Even more systematic approaches reveal significant limitations. Workflow management flow charts or process-oriented workflow descriptions require great effort to produce and are not easily understood “as-is” by many potential users of these workflow descriptions. Specific scenarios must be “translated” to workflow description documentation appropriate to the needs of important roles within the workflow. Workflow descriptions must be then translated into the spoken languages of target audiences, adding great cost to systems and documentation development.
Except in carefully designed systems the linkage between workflow descriptions and the command structure of the imaging system software and the functionality of imaging system hardware varies from application to application and relies on the expertise and understanding of clinicians, clinical engineers and system designers and support personnel. The challenge and resource demands of such development efforts often leave the creation of workflow materials to end users desperate for some guidance in navigating complex procedures.
Accordingly, there is a need for a more efficient system for communicating a workflow among the respective entities.